Hear What This Nutrition Expert Says About Gluten!

Scott: Gluten is the big thing now.  Is it really bad or is it kind of the next thing?

JJ Virgin: Gluten is really bad!  It is not the next big thing.  I just did a big one about dairy is the new gluten and sugar is the new gluten.  Here's the thing.  If you want to... if we want to really, really change the world, we'd eat more vegetables, get some sleep, drink more water, take out the gluten and get the sugar impact down.  But gluten is amazing.  In the Virgin diet, you know, of course gluten is a big offender.  And there's a variety of different ways we can become intolerant to gluten.  It can just be genetic.  You've got celiac disease or gluten intolerance.  You can develop an immune intolerance to wheat.  But I'll tell you, there's no simple way to test for it, that looks at all of those different things.

I found when people pull gluten out, and really pull it out, because they stick it in the silliest places.  I mean Pringles, really?  Does it have to be there?  McDonald's, do you have to put it in your french fries?  Really?  But it's addictive.  It's a drug.  Just like dairy is and sugar is.  Theres glutomorphins... has an opiate-like affect on your brain.  You really do get addicted to the french fries, to the pizza.  And what gluten does is, it's very pro-inflammatory, it's sticky.  So we've hybridized our wheat.  So we've concentrated the gluten.  It's like I can go to Italy and eat all the gluten I want.  No problem.  Don't notice it, no inflammation.  I eat it here, I'm inflamed.  And it's within a couple hours.  My stomach hurts, I'm inflamed.  I don't have gluten intolerance. I don't have any of the test things.  

90 percent of the people I pull off gluten, when we go back and challenge, a couple weeks later, they're like 'oh, wow.  I had no idea.'  Things that they'd had problems with forever.  I had a gal who had chronic tendonitis, she'd gone for a year to physical therapy.  Gone.  In a couple of weeks.  Pulling gluten out.  

So gluten does a couple things.  It actually makes your gut wall more permeable, your small intestine more permeable.  So you can become more intolerant to other foods.  Right?  So there's a problem.  It can cause leptin resistance, which means you can't hear leptin so you're going to be hungrier.  It's got very sticky amylopectin A and it causes insulin resistance.  So it can be pro-inflammatory, it can create problems with diabetes, your appetite, food intolerance, it's got a drug-like affect on the brain.  There's really nothing positive to say about it.  The only thing worse than gluten are some of these silly gluten-free foods that people are spending a fortune on thinking they're... I'm like you weren't eating cookies and muffins and cupcakes before so don't eat them now. 

You know, the best gluten free foods are things that don't have to say gluten free on them.  Like wild rice never had gluten or quinoa or any of these things and lentils and legumes and pumpkin.  You don't need to go buy gluten free stuff now, because, you know, again, that's got it own host of problems...

Scott:  Well, that was my next question.  That's the next big business.  What's in those foods now?  Because I mean, I've looked at the labels of some and it says gluten free on them but you look at the label, you're like, oh my gosh, it's not healthy!

Virgin: Yeah, it's got rice... well a lot of it has corn flour and corn has gluten in it.  A different type of gluten, but it's very similar response to wheat gluten.  In lowering your sugar impact, if you look at lot of these gluten free products, they have a very high sugar impact.  A big dump on your blood sugar you know because they've got ground up rice flour, potato flour, corn flour.  They are not the answer there.  If you look at what gluten free is, it's really vegetables, some berries, some nuts and seeds, some wild fish.  That's what gluten free should be.  But it has become a big business.  And it's expensive.  It's crazy.  And so to me, that's what I tell people, let's... if you're doing a whole wheat wrap, ok do a rice wrap.  If you're doing pasta, do some quinoa pasta.  But there's a lot of... forget the cookies.  Alright?  Just forget the cookies.  Forget it.  Have some nuts, retrain your taste buds, you know?